Combined co-pyrolysis/gasification of bituminous coal (BC) and walnut shell (WS) are comparatively studied with both conventional and congruent-mass thermogravimertric analysis (TGA) methods. The results indicate that BC and WS exhibit additivity in the co-pyrolysis step. However, the gasification reactivity of chars in subsequent gasification step exhibits remarkable sample-mass dependence, which causes the illusions in synergy and inhibition effects when conventional TGA tests are conducted. A congruent-mass TGA method has been developed to overcome the limitations of the conventional TGA mode. One of the advantages of this method is that it can reduce to a minimum the effect of sample mass on reactivity. Thus, the degree of synergy or inhibition can be directly estimated from the deviation of the experimental TG curves between the two separated and blended samples. We recommend this method in studying the co-processing behavior between coal and biomass. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.